If you’re recently single, you get valuable perspective and time to reflect on your past relationships, before committing yourself to someone new. But even if you’re in a relationship, previous experiences can be used as lessons for the present. If things get sour or awry in your current relationships, identifying the patterns can help in taking positive steps that can use for your future relationships.

Look out for these four primary indicators while embarking on a new relationship:

1. How are handling the first emotions? Starting a new relationship can be very divulging. Think about the initial or first few days, weeks, months when you changed your status from single to in a relationship. The progress and maturity of the relationship is a burning issue at this phase. Some relationship commences with a deep infatuation. Often, physical or intimate relationships are established prematurely which can result in confusions about intimacy, emotional intimacy and commitment between the two people. Meanwhile, some relationship progresses rationally and steadily. If you’re in a new relationship, recall your past relationships and see whether there are similarities. There isn’t anything wrong with being strongly attracted to a someone you like, but it’s how you handle this passion that can make or break a relationship.

2. How quickly do things develop? Recall some of the most significant memories of your previous relationships. Think about your first kiss. Remember the first time you made a gesture for a commitment in your relationship. By pinpointing these occasions, you can assess whether a relationship has advanced at a regular or hurried pace. If things in your relationships progressed quickly, it could indicate that one or both partners were feeling vulnerable, impulsive or over enthusiastic. Remember, the most stable and healthy relationships develop steadily and gradually.

3. Who do you favor to get involved with? In dating and relationships, men and women, are often attracted to partners with similar flaws. Compare your exes and identify if their characters match up in person. Before you surrender your single status for an ‘in a relationship’ status, make your potential new match significantly different from your last date.

4. Do your dates have similar backgrounds? When you’re dating, someone new considers their personality traits, as well as their family backgrounds. Analyze their life and family backgrounds. Do they come from an unstable, broken, or chaotic homes or families? Think long and hard about the moments of your past relationships, and assess how this has impacted your past relationships. By examining your past relationship, you can help ensure a stable and happier future.

Healthy Relationships are wonderful, beautiful experiences in a life of a person. Bad relationships are unfortunate events, and the emotional scars received from abusive and unhappy relationships, and breakups can be difficult for someone to forget and move on. It can also make someone looking for a new relationship to connect with someone new and be physically and emotionally intimate with him or her. So, before you begin a new relationship, and don’t want to go experience the harshness of a failed relationship, look out for these bad relationship patterns.